


Acquitted

by SentimentalDefect



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Sickfic, Will is an Idiot, god i love this show, jim infects the office, mackenzie is a saint, slightly AU, will gets sick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-09 10:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3246389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SentimentalDefect/pseuds/SentimentalDefect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Acquitted (verb): To free someone from a criminal charge by a verdict of not guilty.<br/>MacKenzie hates sick people, but as per usual she's rather quick to let Will fall through the cracks. Or, in which Jim infects the whole office, Will gets sick, and Mac saves the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 9:00am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Just recently became a Newsroom addict, and naturally had to express this obsession by giving Will and Mac a little fictional TLC. 
> 
> At the time I started writing this I had only watched through season 1, but have since finished the show and realize that the storyline is not constant with that of the canon, given how Mac and Will's relationship evolves so drastically. 
> 
> I wanted to use a recent current event for the sake of being clever, but completely acknowledge that by 2014 our lovely couple would be married and living together, and that Mac would never allow Will to be such an idiot by himself. 
> 
> Therefor think of this as a slightly AU, maintaining the adorable awkwardness of their early relationship. 
> 
> Comments greatly appreciated. <3

November 24, 2014

MacKenzie hates sick people. 

She knows it sounds dreadful to say out loud- after all, how can you hate someone for something that isn’t their fault?- but sickness is just one of those things that she’s never found the time for. 

Being sick means diseasing the entire office, which sends out tiny sonar pings of inconvenience into MacKenzie’s sphere of work, not to mention making her unusually twitchy about doorknobs and tabletops and eating utensils. 

Being sick means being utterly useless to the rest of the team. Being sick means infecting the healthy staff, dragging back research time, and forcing extra work on someone else, all the while spreading germs into an otherwise perfectly pleasant work environment. Being sick wastes time, being sick wastes money, and if there is one thing ACN cannot have, it is wasting another broadcast due to a slip up. 

Which is why when she walks into the office one morning to a chorus of phlegmy hacking, she knows what has to be done.

“Jim: cab. home. sleep. now.” She says, not stopping her march toward Will’s office. 

She softens, trying not to wince as she takes in the red eyes and runny nose staring blankly up at her. 

“You sound terrible, I’m sorry, please go home and try to get better so we can have you back for tomorrow.” 

He waves a hand in an attempt at dismissal that ends up falling lifelessly to his lap. 

“It’s nothing, it’s a cold, I’m fine.”

“You’re sick, you’re contaminating the office. I can feel your germs percolating into my bloodstream as we speak. Go home.”

She’s met with a raspy huff. 

“That’s not how germs work.” He croaks out. “They don’t just jump into your bloodstream when you—“ 

MacKenzie holds up a hand. “Jim, I adore you, but you look like shit.”

He crumples. 

“Home. Bed. Now. Maggie, call him a cab, would you? Make sure he doesn’t pass out in the elevator.”

She turns to Neal, still fast-tracking it to Will’s office. “What have we got for today?”

He jogs next to her, fingers busily skimming a notepad as they walk. 

“Uh, 12-year-old boy was shot by police after brandishing what turned out to be a BB gun in a park… President Obama made a statement endorsing Hilary Clinton as a potential presidential nominee… oh, the results of the Darren Wilson inditement are still pending, and Iggy Azalea just won an AMA for her debut album.” 

MacKenzie turns, nose rumpling. “What’s a Wiggy Azalea?” 

Neal opens his mouth, then thinks better of it. “Doesn’t matter. Briefing in 20 minutes?”

He’s almost to the other elevator when she notices the distinctive lack of McAvoy in Will’s office and frowns. 

“Where’s Will?” She asks. 

Neal shrugs. “I don’t think he’s here yet.” 

MacKenzie gapes in astonishment, glances at her watch. 9:18. She turns to no one in particular. “Does anyone know where the hell—?“

As if on cue the elevator slides open to reveal an especially grouchy looking Will, briefcase clutched in one hand, a sopping wet newspaper in the other. 

Bingo.

MacKenzie pivots seamlessly, backtracking toward the surly anchor without missing a beat. 

“Glad you showed up, I was beginning to worry you’d forgotten you were still employed here.”

He ignores her, brushing past toward his office. She follows, heels tap-tapping in sync with his heavy footfalls. 

“Did you fall asleep in the shower? Forget to set an alarm?” 

Will remains stoic, jaw set, face determinedly blank. She sighs. Asshole. She tries another jab, putting on her Boss Lady voice in hope of bullying him into some humor. 

“Are those pants giving you trouble again? I know this whole two-legged thing can be awfully difficult, especially in these times of extreme—“

“Yes, I forgot to set an alarm, alright?” He snaps, stopping just outside the door to glare at her.  
“For fuck’s sake Mac, it’s a Monday morning, I haven’t slept in days, and there’s four inches of snow outside, so just give me a minute, okay?” 

She stares at him, momentarily stunned. He wilts under her gaze, rubbing his eyes tiredly. 

“I’m sorry.” He croaks, and suddenly he doesn’t sound anything like his usual cocky self. He gestures for her to come in. She does, and he closes the door behind them before collapsing into the massive desk chair and groaning loudly. 

“What’s wrong with you?” She asks, frowning. Will just shakes his head, pointedly ignoring her gaze. 

Her stomach knots with the first stirring of genuine worry. 

“Will?” She prompts. “What’s wrong?” 

There’s a pause, and she can see him struggle with the truth; the weight of it in his hands as he considers how much to tell her. 

“I just haven’t been sleeping.” He finally mumbles. His head is cradled against his palms, voice so low that she almost misses it entirely. 

“Last night?”

“All week.” 

“Jesus, Will. Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugs, an attempt at deflection that just makes him look even more exhausted. He shivers. 

“Cold?” MacKenzie asks cautiously, acutely aware of the direction this conversation could go if she says the wrong thing. 

“Fine.” He massages the bridge of his nose, letting out a little huff of breath. 

“Headache?”

“Yeah.” 

“Do you want me to get you some—?”

“—no. Thanks. My doctor says I should ease up on the painkillers. I’d like to at least make it to 60, and in the off-chance I’m not assassinated before then, it would be nice to have a functioning liver.”

She hums in agreement, trying to ignore the nagging desire to reach over and feel his forehead. She has a sneaking suspicion he’s running a fever, and even if he’s managed to regain his general air of being a conceited prick, it’s clear that something’s a little bit… off, today. She must be staring, because the next thing she knows Will’s snapping his fingers in her face, bemused. 

“Mac? The briefing?”

“Right, yes. 20 minutes.”

“Great.” 

He stands, walks to the door. He’s almost outside when she stops him. 

“Will?”

He turns, blue eyes soaking her in. “Yes?”

There’s a half-second of silence, then she shrugs it off. “Nothing. Nevermind. Ill see you in 20.” 

He nods, leaving the door to swing shut in his wake.


	2. 10:30am

Will hates sick people. 

He doesn’t give a fuck that this hatred is probably misplaced, that it’s probably unfair and illogical and only worsens his already fraying image of nice-ness among the staff, but frankly it doesn’t really matter, because today he’s not allowed to be angry at anyone but himself. 

And Jim. He gets to be mad at Jim, because he’s 99.999% sure that Jim is the one who has infected him, and if Will goes down, he’s sure as hell going to drag everyone else down with him.   
He wakes up achey and exhausted, skin too tight for his body and head a solid eight sizes too big, and he only has to roll over to recognize the dull heaviness of congestion collecting between his eyes.

Having successfully confirmed that this is the worst Monday he could have asked for, he manages to pry open his eyes long enough to notice that- you’ve got to be fucking me - he’s almost 30 minutes late for work. Additionally, he’s got seven texts from Mac, four missed calls, and an explosion of Twitter alerts, half of which are calling for his execution, the other half kindly reminding him of last week’s stunt with the Taliban comment. 

The most recent simply reads: “ur a dick #killwill2k14”. 

To be fair, “Kill Will” does have sort of a nice ring to it, and if he wasn’t so damn tired he might have tossed a snarky comment in @dick_wangster’s virtual face. But, at the moment he’s too busy coughing up a lung to think about anything but the faint wheezing coming from his chest as he wonders blearily if he’ll even by coherent by showtime, much less capable of kicking some kid’s scrawny ass.

He’s already late, so he allows himself a leisurely shower that does pretty much nothing to soothe the shit in his head and chest, and by the time he reaches the office he’s beginning to wonder if he should have bothered showing up at all. 

It takes all of about 8 seconds for MacKenzie to pounce once he gets out of the elevator, and it takes everything he has to focus on their conversation in the midst of his rapidly escalating headache. He pushes them into his office, and after what seems like ages she finally wraps up and turns to leave, hesitating just a half second in the doorway. 

“Will?” 

“Yes?”

She watches him, and he can’t quite shake the feeling he’s being X-rayed. A flicker of the eyes (up/down), a mental scan to be converted later in MacKenzie-code and stored deep in the recesses of her brain. He squirms, wondering if she’s going to ask if he’s feeling okay and whether or not he should accept her coddling, but then the look is gone and Mac shakes her head and smiles like it was nothing. 

“Nothing. Nevermind. Ill see you in 20.” 

He nods as the door closes, and then breathes a sigh of relief that she didn’t badger him about his well-being. God knows he loves Mac, and he knows she means well, but he’s really just not the type to be babied, sick or otherwise. It makes him embarrassed and squirmy, all pink ears and muttered “thank you’s” that make him feel like a bug under a microscope and frankly he’d rather drop dead on Air than be forced to blunder through a day where everyone has to worry about him and ask how he’s feeling every ten seconds. 

That being said, he feels pretty shitty right now, but there’s no reason Mac or the rest of the staff should become aware of that. He downs three tylenol with a mouthful of lukewarm coffee, and then makes his way to the conference room, where Neal and Maggie are in the midst of an animated conversation regarding the afterlife. Maggie looks like she might combust at any moment, while Neal sighs patiently like a tutor with an incredibly slow pupil. 

“Ghosts, Neal, are you seriously trying to say we should do a story about the pseudo-science bullshit of ghosts?” 

“It’s not ‘pseudo science’! Hawking argues for a theory of relativity, making it possible for—“

“—I swear to god, one of these days someone is going to come out with a theory that Hitler in plotting to assassinate… fucking Obama, or something, and you’re going to go ahead an—“

Will interrupts. “Well, it sounds like we’re off to a good start. Breaking news: “Adolf Hitler: Alive and Liberal?’. Toss up some graphics and a couple pie charts and we’ll be giving Fox a run for their money.” 

The staff titters and Will waves his non-coffee hand. 

“But seriously, what have we got today?” 

Neal opens his mouth but Maggie beats him to it. 

“We’re awaiting the Ferguson verdict but it should be made public within the hour.” 

MacKenzie jumps in. “We’ve got several sources who would like to weigh in on the decision once it’s been released. Dave and Elliot are both in St. Louis, but we’ve got a few other statements that we’d like to run with as well…” 

She carries on, animated and determined as ever, and Will finds himself blinking against heavy lids, nodding vaguely at suggestions and nursing his coffee. He’s starting to feel slightly nauseous from the caffeine and painkillers on an empty stomach, and is just starting to wonder if there’s anything in the kitchen when he’s interrupted by the clatter of a plate being set in front of him. 

He startles, looking up to see MacKenzie’s head whir past as she deposits the dish in front of him. Earl Grey, two pieces of toast (on the french bread from Manny’s he’s always liked) and some sort of veggie hash that would normally be offensive but actually looks pretty good. This is all delivered alongside a bottle of water and a single packet of Sudafed tucked behind one of the toasts.

“You looked a little peaky, I figured you forgot to eat. Again.” 

He clears his throat, wincing at how ragged the action feels against his chest. 

“Thanks.” He mutters, taking a sip of the tea. It’s not too strong and not too hot, and he silently praises whatever god let MacKenzie McHale fall into his life. Glancing around he realizes the staff has dispersed, and cringes at how completely out of it he is if he tuned out their entire meeting. MacKenzie clearly feels the same way, but she keeps it off her face and out of her eyes when she turns to him. 

“We’ve got the outline for tonight right here—“ She taps a paper (where did that come from?) on the table in front of him, “And Neal’s going to carry on with the Turner source for Ferguson.” 

MacKenzie carries on and Will nods from above his tea, racking his brain for who the Turner source is. The warm liquid makes him feel a little better, but honestly he can feel the edges of a full-blown flu creeping in around him even as they speak. Tonight he’ll feel awful, tomorrow he’ll wish he were dead, and by Wednesday he’ll be up and running again (provided @dick_wangster doesn’t knock him off between now and then). 

He’s almost forgotten Mac is in the room, but the background hum of her updates blip slowly back into his radar. 

“—apparently convinced we should bring up the— are you even listening?”

“Hmm?” 

“Will, I said are you listening?”

“Sure.”

“Sure, what?”

“Sure whatever you said, I approve, god speed, you’re the boss don’t let anyone tell you otherwise except me.” 

She almost laughs and then gives him a look. 

“You really didn’t sleep last night.”

“No.”

“You should take the Sudafed, you’re starting to sound a little congested.”

“I’m fine.”

If it were anyone else they would either press the issue or call him an asshole, but MacKenzie just nods and lets it go. 

He takes a bite of one of the toasts, relishing the buttery crunch of well-made bread and making a mental note to be nicer to his EP. MacKenzie hands over a final stack of papers with a flourish, grinning as he devours the bread. 

“There’s more in the kitchen if you’re hungry. I’ll keep you updated on the Ferguson story once we know more.”

Will nods through a mouth of toast. 

“We’ve got a few hours before we’ll need you again, so if you need to take a break I’ve told all the staff not to bother you until noon.”

Will scoffs. “What, in case I want to take a power nap?”

MacKenzie shrugs. “Whatever you want. But yes, particularly if that want involves sleeping because you look terrible and we really don’t actually need you for a while so if you wanted to take a nap you could, that’s all I’m saying.”

He gawks. “I’m not a kid you know. I know I often require adult supervision and I’m prone to starting fires and calling people dirty names, but I do not need a nap just because I had a rough night.”

MacKenzie holds her hands up: I come in peace. 

“I know. It was just a suggestion. I’ll be up in Charlie’s office if you need me- we’re going over this years contracts with Leona. Don’t do anything stupid. No fires. No name calling.” 

“No promises.”

He watches her leave through the glass, and wonders how long he could nap before someone will bang on his door and force him to actually work. Thirty minutes, he thinks to himself. Thirty minutes is a reasonable nap time.


End file.
